‘HOAX’?: Trump Changes Tune on Affordability

President Donald Trump called affordability “a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing.”

“Look, affordability’s a hoax that was started by Democrats who caused the problem of pricing. And they didn’t end it when, look, they lost it in a landslide,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Tuesday.  

Trump bashed Democrats for using the word “affordability” as a “con job.”  

“But the word affordability is a Democrat scam,” Trump said, adding that the Biden administration “had the worst inflation in the history of our country.” 

Trump called it a “fake narrative that the Democrats talk about affordability. They just say the word. It doesn’t mean anything to anybody. You just say it—affordability.”

Trump claimed that Democrats don’t know that prices were “much higher” under President Joe Biden, pointing to the prices of gas as an example. Today, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. is $2.99. One year ago, the average price was $3.047, according to AAA.  

“But our prices now for energy, and for gasoline are really low. Electricity is coming down, and when that comes down, everything comes down,” Trump said.

“Beef is coming down now. We’ve done certain magic and beef is coming down,” the president said, adding, “we fixed inflation.”

“We’re gonna get prices down still further, but we brought them down,” he said. “The reason that they had the highest inflation in the history of our country is because they had the highest prices. But we brought them down, and now we have normal inflation.”

The U.S. inflation rate hit a 30-year high at 8% in 2022 under the Biden administration. The inflation rate today is 3.01%.  

Politicians in Washington and around the country have talked more about the issue of affordability following the elections in November. Affordability surfaced as the key issue voters cared about in Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, and the mayoral race in New York. Republican losses in those elections, and the margins by which the GOP candidates lost, is partially being attributed to a failure to address the affordability crisis in America.  

Since taking office, Trump has pushed for a decrease in interest rates. Trump has continued to call on the Federal Reserve to decrease them following the recent elections.

In November, the White House said Trump plans to ramp up domestic travel ahead of midterms as he sells voters on his affordability accomplishments.